


make every last moment last

by chasingforeverandaday



Series: forest love, forest lass [4]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Also fluff, F/M, Happily Ever After, because talking about your feelings is important, i forgot how to write this much dialogue, proposal done the right way, so much dialogue, talking shit out like grown ass adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingforeverandaday/pseuds/chasingforeverandaday
Summary: In the weeks before the meeting at the Dragon Pit, Arya Stark finally resurfaces after her mysterious disappearance. More shockingly, she resurfaces in the rooms of Gendry Baratheon, former confused blacksmith, currently heartbroken Lord of Storm's End.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: forest love, forest lass [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1353406
Comments: 28
Kudos: 217
Collections: Gendrya Gift Exchange 2019





	make every last moment last

**Author's Note:**

> Gendrya Gift Exchange! (part the second)
> 
> Prompt: “There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.” - Jane Austen
> 
> So I really hope I did this one justice, I fell into a universe where Arya almost likes talking about her feelings and it kind of spiraled from there... This one was for arya-regina over on tumblr, so here's hoping this story is everything you were wishing it to be!
> 
> And yes, the title is a line from "As Long As You're Mine" off the Wicked soundtrack, because reasons.

“I love you.”

At the sound of Arya’s voice in his room, somehow both loud as a thunderclap and quiet as a whisper, Gendry spins around, eyes landing on her figure in the flickering candlelight, searching over her battered body and cataloguing every hurt, every fading bruise, before finally meeting her tearstained gaze. He twitches a hand out, already reaching for her, barely processing the words that have left her mouth, only that she is _alive_ and _in front of him_ , when all he had been thinking for weeks was that maybe she was gone and maybe he would never know for sure, not with the way half the city had turned to ash. But then she is here and in his arms, wrapping herself around him like she is trying to merge their very souls through sheer willpower. Gendry lowers his own arms to crush her against his chest, resting his cheek on her hair as he breathes her in, letting all his worry ease simply for the sake of holding her.

Eventually, his mind catches up with his ears, and he leans away to cup her face, desperately gauging if what he’d heard had been a figment of his imagination. Arya’s trembling smile is enough to reassure him that _this is really happening_ and he immediately threads a hand back through her hair and roughly brings her lips to his, all passion and no finesse as he kisses her for the first time since the night he asked her that damned question. She eagerly responds, their mouths clashing as they both fight for control and leverage. It’s like coming home, like finding a piece of himself he’d long thought lost, like every other poetic, romantic nonsense he heard spewing from Tom’s mouth back in the Riverlands years ago. All he knows is that Arya has found him again, and she loves him, and he’ll never be leaving her side until the day she orders him away.

When breathing becomes something of an issue and they’re forced to part, he looks down at Arya, finally believing that just maybe he hadn’t fucked everything up for good with that stupid proposal he’d made when too drunk on survival and wine and _her_ to know any better. He opens his mouth, intent on saying the words he’d been rehearsing in his head since she walked back into his forge in Winterfell, the words he meant to tell her the night of the battle before she’d so thoroughly distracted him, but instead, all that comes out is, “I love you too,” so quietly he can only pray she heard him, and really, that was the most important bit of the whole speech he had planned out.

And if the tender look on her face is any indication, it was exactly what she’d needed to hear, because though she steps away from him, she holds his hands tight in hers as she takes a steadying breath before locking her gaze with his, silently daring Gendry to blink first.

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. I love you, gods, I love you so much it terrifies me. And you are the best man, the best person I know.” Arya moves forward once more, hands resting on his chest as she looks up at him with those wide grey eyes that haunted his dreams for years. Gendry strains not to interrupt, because he can tell she is not yet finished expressing whatever has been building within her. Her fingers pick at the stitching on his shirt as she glances down, and her voice grows sad as she tells him, “I love my siblings, I do, but love and trust are two very different things, and all I know is I trust no person in the world more than I trust you. I trust you to love me as I am, wild and deadly and scarred, as I love you for being the most bull-headed man I have ever known.” 

That comment startled a laugh out of him, though her light smack to his chest calmed him enough so she could continue. “I trust you will always watch my back, just as I will always watch yours. I trust you to tell me when I’m being an idiot, and I promise to return the favor as long as I live. Do you think that’s enough to build a life out of?” Her gaze raises to meet his, unsurety shining as bright as the stars he normally sees in her eyes. 

Cupping her face, he leans his forehead against hers, gently nuzzling the cool skin of her cheek. At her soft intake of breath, he brushes a kiss against her lips before answering. “I think that’s the best thing to build a life out of.” Another kiss, this time awkwardly as grins begin to overtake their mouths, making it hard to keep any semblance of dignity. “Because I love you, exactly as you are, warts and scars and all.” Her squawk of offense goes unnoticed as he drops down to his knee in front of her, looking up into those stormy eyes that hold the secrets he’d like to spend forever learning, but he will settle for this lifetime. “Arya Stark, I love you. I love the way you light up whenever I hand you a weapon and I love knowing I can trust you never to stab me in the back with it. I love the expression on your face when someone catches you acting like the dirty urchin we both know you can be, as unladylike as I am less than lordly. Also, quite frankly I love the way you moan my name when I’m doing something right, it really helps my ego.” 

He avoided her punch by keeping a firm grasp on her hands, waiting until she’d finished rolling her eyes to ask the simple question that would affect the rest of their lives. “Now Arya, my lovely, deadly Arya, I love you, and I would very much like to marry you, if you would let me. So, marry me?”

Her enthusiastic “Yes!” is cut off by her own barking laugh when he picks her up and spins around in a circle, the happiness in his heart exploding every which way as her eyes sparkle and his hands grip her waist tightly, and what was once a joyous embrace quickly turns to frantic fumbling and need as they stumble in the direction of his much too large featherbed.

* * *

The next morning, Gendry is loathe to leave the room that has seamlessly become _theirs_ overnight, but Arya insists, dragging him by the hand wherever she may please, as he has no will to stop her from doing what she will so long as he may follow. Before leaving the inhabitable part of the keep, she’d pulled him into a room off what must have once been the kitchen, directing him to fill sacks with as much food as he could carry. 

Arya ignores his questions, simply keeps handing him dusty pieces of hard tack and dried meats as she inspects the contents of several still intact barrels. Satisfied by what she finds, she relieves him of the overloaded bag and directs him to haul two of the barrels over his shoulders. Liquid sloshes loudly in his ears, but the seals hold firm and the weight feels like nothing compared to the weight of the ore he hauled in his old life. She secures the swords at both of the their waists, his hammer still on a forge bench in Storm’s End, and pecks his lips before flitting out the door.

Together, they descend into the depths of the city, Arya picking her way carefully through the destroyed streets of the city he once called his own. She leads him farther from the ruins of the Keep, until he starts to recognize the twists and turns of the alleys they traverse; it’s Flea Bottom, or at least whatever is left of it. They’ve made it into the bowels of the city, past scorched rubble and crumbled heaps of corpses he dares not take the time to examine for fear he will find the face of someone he knows. After a turn towards what used to be the Street of Silk, they walk into a wall of noise, the hum of humanity silencing in an instant when the first of these hidden people catch a glimpse of the pair. Gendry looks around, cautious curiosity getting the better of him as Arya pauses to gauge his reaction.

The people he sees are those who survived the sack, but had little choice but to return to the home they’d watched be decimated before their very eyes. They are dirty and tired and hungry, but it is the fear that overpowers every other emotion. The children hide behind their parents’ legs at the sight of an unknown man, for clean and well fed as he is, Gendry looks like one of the noble idiots he despised when he was in their place. The men are guarded, hands holding their wives and daughters out of his reach, like he is one of the monsters who attacked this city, like he wasn’t one of them only a few months ago. 

Something like hurt and rage and sympathy runs through him in quick succession, no single feeling taking control as he freezes in place at their silent judgement. It is only when Arya tugs at his belt that he moves, eyes still searching for a friendly face, for anyone who will look at him and see the humble smith rather than the incompetent lordling. Gendry nearly walks into her when she halts suddenly, righting his balance with the barrels he carries as she gracefully sidesteps his blunder. Flushing in embarrassment, he follows her gaze to the group of older women who seem to have taken control of this ramshackle camp.

Arya, bold as ever, approaches like she has known them all her life and holds out her sack of food to the lead matron, an offering of peace and sustenance. The woman grins, pulling Arya into an embrace as the people surrounding them relax, the inexplicable tension fading as the noise grows once more. One of Arya’s hands reaches back for Gendry, so he obliges, moving close enough to hear his love tell the woman, “Bertha, I was looking for this one. He’s my…” her face screws up in annoyance, mock scowl twisting her features as she continues in a disgusted tone, “ _betrothed_ , and I assumed he would most likely wish to know where I was going to be spending my time away from him now that he’s arrived.”

He smirked as he set down his heavy load, “You say that as if I had any choice in the matter. You basically dragged me down here with barely a word. You could have been leading me towards my death for all I knew, love.” 

Arya rolled her eyes, kicking him none too gently in the shin. “When did you become this dramatic?”

“Probably around when I fell in love with you. It made my mind abandon my common sense.”

A throat cleared nearby, and they both snapped back to the grinning Bertha, who’s giggles at their antics seemed to take decades off her face. When she’d calmed herself enough to speak clearly, she asked, “So where did you find this one young lady?”

“Oh, I found her trying to fight a pair of idiots twice her size, just a few streets over actually. Managed to keep her from getting herself killed that day and haven’t looked back.” 

* * *

Hours later as they return to their rooms, Gendry is exhausted, yet more content than he has been with his own actions since he was named a lord. He helped erect a tent for the wisewomen to tend their charges, forged three cauldrons for the cookfires after finding his old smithy, and observed Arya being the woman he always knew she could grow up to be. Arry, who was always willing to make a friend or lend a hand to those she easily could have seen as far below her, who he had long thought to be the best kind of lady, one who wanted to help in a way no other highborn he’d met had ever tried to, but for maybe her father.

He’s sure he’d looked like a lovesick sop while he watched her being fussed over by the matrons of this little village, blushing as they hover over her and ask her questions, barely allowing her to lift a finger as they work the everyday magic of the Mother to stretch what they have to feed the humble remnants of a city burned. She had given them a chance to survive, something he knows from experience is a debt that can never be repaid. He overhears many greet her by name, asking after certain people, seeing if she has news of when they’ll be allowed to try and resume their lives or if she has any ideas of where they should be trying to go. 

At that last question, she catches his eye when she tells the woman who had asked that she is working on finding a place for them, before excusing herself and returning to his side. He raises an eyebrow at her, but her smug mask does little more than pique his curiosity further. They leave soon after, the sun beginning to set.

Upon finding their way back to that storeroom off the kitchens, they snag enough food for themselves and retreat back upstairs. With the door locked and their veritable feast spread across the table, Arya opens her mouth and rocks his world for the second time in as many days.

“Bertha says I should be checked over by a maester before we head on to Storm’s End, just to make sure she’s correct and the baby’s alright.” Bread suspended just in front of his mouth, Gendry can only stare at her as she continues on, the image of obliviousness but for the tightness in her grip on the spoon. “Of course, I told her I trust her judgement more than any bloody maester, seeing as she’s had actual children, not merely read about delivering them, but she said since I hadn’t figured out for myself that I was pregnant until she told me today, my opinion was moot.” 

Air. Air was important for… reasons. He should probably breathe at some point, but why that was so vital was escaping him at this moment. Continuing to stare like the idiot she always used to accuse him of being, Gendry tried to make his mouth work, but no words came. Arya, who’d apparently grown tired of waiting for him to respond, finally looked up at his gaping face. “Are you alright there dear?”

“Baby?” he croaked out, sucking in air as the implications of everything she’d said after that came crashing down. 

Indulgently, she smiled at him. “Yes, Gendry. It would appear that we are in fact having a baby.” She reached over, lacing her fingers through his. “Bertha thinks I must be nearly two moons gone, so right around the Long Night. She told me I was an idiot for thinking those scars of mine did anything to my womb, they’re in entirely the wrong spot. But I didn’t think I could have children, especially not so easily, so I never took the moon tea I stole in Winterfell, so here we are. And I know it’s sooner than either of us had planned on, but…” She looked so unsure, so vulnerable as she trails off. He wanted nothing more than to reassure Arya that this was the best thing in the world, because gods, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard better news, so he sinks to his knees in front of her chair, nuzzling his face into her stomach. But he wants to feel as close as possible, so he untucks her tunic and raises it enough to get his lips to the skin above where their child lays, pressing a firm kiss to the tiny swell he now feels there.

Looking up at her with tears in his eyes, he beams. “We’re having a baby.”

“Aye, love, we’re having a baby.” Her fingers clutch at this neck, bringing him up for a wet kiss as they laugh and cry and babble at each other. “I never thought, well maybe I hoped, but-”

“Arya, I’m, gods, I’m so happy-”

“- I think a part of me always knew I wanted to be one, wanted to do better than my parents did, much as I love them.”

“-and with you and a baby Arya, we’re going to have a baby that is mine and yours and ours. No one can take them away from us.”

“We’ll be a family.” Touching his forehead to hers, Gendry stared into the sparkling gray eyes of the mother of his child and had never felt happier in his life. Arya brought both of their hands down to cover their baby.

“Our own little family.”

* * *

It’s not until several days later, laying in the sheets wearing nothing but skin, that he asks the question that has been rolling around in his head since she appeared in his room. Propping himself up on his elbow, Gendry leans over to run his lips along her bare shoulder, making his way towards her neck. As she hums contentedly and adjusts to give him a better angle, he whispers in her ear, “Why don’t you want to stay North?” 

Arya huffs and flips onto her back, breaking the contact between them for the first time in hours. “Is now really the time you want to be having this conversation?” 

“I just…” He stops himself, picking his words carefully before his mouth runs too fast for his brain to follow. “I want to make sure that going to Storm’s End is what you want, that I’m not making you be something you don’t want to be. Because I think you’ll be a great lady and do wonderful things, but only if you want to. I don’t want to be someone who takes away your choices.” 

She softened the more he spoke, hand coming up to gently cup his cheek. “You aren’t taking away my choice, stupid, you’re giving me the freedom to make my own. I love you and I can’t see myself returning to Winterfell. The Stormlands are yours by right and we can do so much good for so many people, can have a place to call our own and have a safe home to raise our children. To me it is that simple.”

“But, how can you be so sure of something so big?” The sentence is mumbled into her hair, a shield against the glare he desperately hopes she isn’t throwing his way.

Chuckling lightly, she pets his head until he turns to fully face her. “Well for one, Winterfell just feels too full of ghosts for me to ever truly feel content there. I kept looking into my father’s solar, expecting to see him at his desk or his favorite chair by the fire. But it’s different now, colder. It’s Sansa’s domain, not his, and I know he’s never coming back but gods I just miss him and my mother so much Gendry. So much…” She trails off as if lost in a memory, and not knowing what else he can do, he simply tucks her in closer and holds her fiercely, trying to show without words that he would gladly take her pain away if he could. Arya sniffles, seems to gather her thoughts again and presses back just enough that he can see her eyes, shining with yet unshed tears.

“And Robb and Rickon… I don’t even remember what my baby brother looked like when he died. I just know everyone said he would grow up the spitting image of Robb, he had the same red hair and blue eyes as Robb and my mother and Sansa. And I can’t see Robb without seeing what they did to him and Grey Wind. I can’t think of my brother’s face without seeing his death Gendry, what does that say about me?” 

“You saw horrors no one should see, and you survived.” She opened her mouth, no doubt to argue with him, but he shushed her as gently as he could before continuing. “No, I’m not saying that to take away your pain, I know I can’t do that, I think the only way that could happen is with time. But your last memory of Robb was the Red Wedding, not him hugging you or teaching you how to do whatever it is that noble boys teach their little sisters. And nothing can erase that, nothing but time can dull the pain. I still miss my mother, and sometimes the glimpse of a woman with curly blonde hair is enough to bring everything up again, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s just a woman with hair that maybe looks a little like my mother’s. So maybe one day you will be able to remember Robb without thinking of the way he died.” 

She settles against him, laying still for so long he assumes she’s fallen asleep, before tilting her head back, a serious look on her face. “I don’t think you realize how hard it is for me to trust anyone anymore, because I’ve trusted you for years and never truly stopped. We may have been separated, but it wasn’t because you betrayed me. It’s just that I can love someone without ever trusting them, except for you. Part of why I love you so easily is because I trust you more than anyone, even my siblings.”

“Jon is complicated, because as much as I love him, I don’t understand all of the choices he’s made recently. Fuck, he helped the bloody Dragon Queen, was willing to follow her to hell before his conscience caught up with him and he killed her. And it’s strange, because I could almost understand why he was following her when he loved her, but then he killed her, and I couldn’t ever kill you, even if you suddenly turned into something mad like she did. That’s not love, it’s death. I can’t compare it to what I feel for you. And even though he’s in the dungeon and has no one but me, I’ve been rebuffed enough times when I try to comfort him or just talk to him to know my presence is unwanted, so I’ll leave him be. I will not let Jon drag me into his pit of despair, no matter how much I love him.”

“And Sansa is somehow more and less like herself than ever. I thought we were learning to trust one another in Winterfell, we were closer but she’s gone so cold, it’s like trying to embrace an ice sculpture. All she cares about is freeing the North, no matter the cost to anyone around her. She betrayed my trust, Jon’s trust, when she told Tyrion of Jon’s parentage the instant his back was turned. Maybe she was trying to protect him from himself or maybe she was trying to hurt the Dragon Queen’s cause, but all it did was cause Jon enormous pain and create a divide in our family. Who’s to say she wouldn’t reveal one of my secrets if it made life better for her politically? No, I love her as my sister, but I can never trust her again, she has too much of the Lannisters and Littlefinger in her.”

“As for Bran, I don’t think he’s really even Bran anymore. I love the Bran he used to be, the little boy who could climb any wall in Winterfell, but that boy is long gone. I don’t know if we can ever get him back, or if we’ll just be stuck with the emotionless, blank shell of whatever is left of him once the Three-Eyed Raven is done with him.”

Her rant over, Arya seemed spent, happy to do little more than draw nonsensical patterns on his chest, just as he did along her hip. Eventually, just as he was growing drowsy, she scratched at him lightly to capture his full attention once more.

“I promise, Gendry, I want to go South with you and rule the Stormlands with you and raise a family of little wolves and stags with you, each more wild than the last, starting with this one.” She tugged the hand holding her waist over, letting his palm rest on the barely noticeable curve of her stomach. “That is my choice, and it is one I would gladly make a thousand times over. You make me happy, my darling bull, and I intend to never lose that happiness.” 

* * *

When the Lords and Ladies of the realm meet in the Dragon Pit, he sits under the black and gold banners of his ancestors, shoulders taut under the not quite correct tailoring of the doublet that was once his uncle’s. He barely speaks, instead choosing to let the fierce woman at his side do the talking when her brother is threatened, doing little more than glare when he feels it necessary and squeeze her hand comfortingly whenever a pulse of uncertainty twitches in her jaw.

Gendry knows that Jon sees and makes all the wrong assumptions. Gendry knows Sansa sees, and makes all the correct assumptions for all the wrong reasons. Gendry knows that Bran sees all, though according to Arya, he’s not really Bran anymore. They all think they know what is going on between him and Arya, but they do not, they cannot really, because there are still mornings he has to pinch himself to make sure she is real and lying next to him. But here is what Gendry knows for certain:

The woman he loves loves him back.

The woman he loves is the most brilliant, terrifying woman he has ever met and he would gladly follow her to the ends of the world.

The woman he loves is carrying their child, who has already survived war and treason and he loves it more than almost anything in this world, except for perhaps its mother.

The woman he loves told him she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, wants to marry him under the sight of the gods and make him hers in every way that matters.

The woman he loves is Arya Stark, and together they will make their home.


End file.
